Genesis 34
This is the account of Dinah’s rape by Shechem.
Three things stand out.
1. Soul Tie?
v3 “3 His soul was strongly attracted to Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the young woman and spoke kindly to the young woman.” Is this a soul tie?
2. Generational Curse?
Funny how the sins of the father become the sins of the sons… Jacob was a deceiver. So here are two of his sons who deceive the man who raped their sister. Here the deception leads to much more than just a blessing. Here these two men murder all the men of a community and take all their possessions.
3. An Honorable Rapist?
Simeon and Levi deceive Shechem and his father Hamor saying that they will cross-pollinate with their countrymen if all the men of their city/province would get circumcised. For whatever reason, they they do.
v 19 “19 So the young man did not delay to do the thing, because he delighted in Jacob’s daughter. He was more honorable than all the household of his father. “
The “young man” referenced is Shechem. HE IS MORE HONORABLE? What is up with that? I don’t understand. It must not say much about Hamor, his father.
vv 25-31
25 Now it came to pass on the third day, when they were in pain, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, each took his sword and came boldly upon the city and killed all the males. 26 And they killed Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah from Shechem’s house, and went out. 27 The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and plundered the city, because their sister had been defiled. 28 They took their sheep, their oxen, and their donkeys, what was in the city and what was in the field, 29 and all their wealth. All their little ones and their wives they took captive; and they plundered even all that was in the houses.
30 Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, “You have troubled me by making me obnoxious among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites; and since I am few in number, they will gather themselves together against me and kill me. I shall be destroyed, my household and I.”
31 But they said, “Should he treat our sister like a harlot?”
Who’s right here? Simeon and Levi who avenged their sister’s honor and innocence or Jacob whois now fearing for the life of himself and his family/clan?